


Crossing the Bar

by theosymphany



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: Alfred Lord Tennyson, Crossing The Bar, Emotional, First of July, M/M, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-05-12 22:24:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19238293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theosymphany/pseuds/theosymphany
Summary: It is said that when we have crossed over we have to answer three questions:Who are you?What have you done in the time allotted to you?What would you do if you had to choose all over again?





	Crossing the Bar

_My name is Piers Nivans. I am the firstborn son of Scott Nivans. I am a sniper, a soldier, a BSAA operative. Partner to my Captain, Chris Redfield. I am a brother. A son. A leader to my team. I am a part of humanity in our struggle against so many wrongs._

_Right. There is a part of me that isn’t…. human? I am me. But I am not just me. I am at war against myself, but this thorn in my side shall never have mastery of me._

 

* * *

 

Father used to tell us stories. We loved the stories growing up, dad’s stories from work. And dad’s stories about his dad, and even great-grandpa’s stories passed down to us. Some of these stories are old, but at the same time, timeless. In the surreal way that war is timeless. It doesn’t matter how war starts. The only constant is conflict, strife, suffering. But always, always amongst the heartbreak there is a tale of hope, valour, gallantry. That is why I serve. My forefathers have made a difference, and one day, so had I.

For this story, dad he waited until the three of us boys were in high school.

He said that my great-grandfather had been to heaven. He couldn’t ever say anything about what it was like, but he knew he was there, beyond a doubt. Father said great-grandpa never spoke of how he got there. He chuckled that great-grandpa probably got drunk one night and dreamt the whole thing. For a story that didn’t really have an ending, or a beginning though, it was a curious one and stuck with me. I wonder if I'll ever make it there one day.

One of the few other things I know of my great-grandfather was his favourite poem. It is more of a family favourite, really. 'Crossing the Bar', by Alfred Tennyson. I knew the words all my life, mother made sure of that. She said great-grandpa and him might even have been contemporaries! I didn't think I really understood what it mean though. But perhaps, perhaps they are just starting to make sense.

Great-grandpa said that when you go to heaven you had to answer three questions about your life.

_Who are you?_

_What have you done in the time allotted to you?_

_What would you do if you had to choose all over again?_

 

Great-grandpa never shared his answers, but he was the first military man in our family, and from thence there has been a Nivans in every generation who went on and took the vow.

 

 

* * *

 

_Sunset and evening star,_

_And one clear call for me!_

_And may there be no moaning of the bar,_

_When I put out to sea,_

 

Ah Edonia, 2012.

It really wasn’t meant to be our mission. But Captain wanted us to get more field experience. He wanted the rookie, Finn, to get on the field and shore up. Wanted to see us working as a team. Above all, he wanted to help.

 

We were good. At least we think we were. None of us were wet behind our ears. We’d all seen conflict, even for Finn, though a first as a BSAA operative.

That’s not to say things went well. It was grim going in. We already had casualties. It wasn’t his fault. But our agent died running recon alone.

We didn’t fare much better. I wish my squad brothers are with me. They are special to me. We trusted each other to have our backs. We lived together. Went through hell together.

Only Captain and I came back.

 

They died doing what was right.

But what was right became very wrong. They were our brothers one moment, and the next, they turned, and put the Captain on the floor.

It had to be me who put right what went wrong.

In the moment, I wasn’t shooting them, it wasn’t them anymore.

Chris was hurt. I only had one objective. Get him out. No one gets in my way.

I got him out. Just. I don’t know how. I didn’t have the luxury of thoughts or memories at that time either. But he too, had slipped away, and I was left, in a foreign and frozen land. Quiet, wounded on the outside and in.

And so very alone.

 

* * *

 

_But such a tide as moving seems asleep,_

_Too full for sound and foam,_

_When that which drew from out the boundless deep_

_Turns again home._

 

I did all I can to help. I laid it all on the line. It was D-day, the final offensive, the dead of night before there may ever be dawn again. I brought Chris back and we went straight into no man’s land. We were alone, all we had was each other.

 

_Edonia, June 2013_

I lost him, and I found him, the night before our mission.

Ok, I didn’t tell the truth. I lost him, but I found him much earlier than that.

It was him in body only though. It wasn’t Chris.

Only Chris can decide to step back into his boots.

It wasn’t my call to disrupt this man’s life in Edonia and bring him back. I did what I did best. Watch him from afar. Listened. Saw how he lived. Sat in the same bar night after night where he tried to find solace in the bottom of a glass. It broke me to pieces.

I had hope in my heart each time we might brush past each other. Tried to strike up useless chatter. Rouse memories.

I cried myself to sleep most of those nights. And I’d never tell anyone.

It broke my heart to see him disappear, but peace, even in amnesia, is a blessed gift. I had all kinds of horrors in those few months, keeping all the horrors I’d seen to myself.

I never told them what happened to Finn, Andy, Carl, Ben. I said they gave their all in the line of duty to help us escape.

I never told anyone that I had to put them down personally.

War is hell. Bioterrorism is the hell of hells.

I’d seen the toll it took on Chris even when I met him. There are only snippets. Moments where he’d let his guard down, or make a passing comment.

He’d been to hell and back. Around 300 times.

Each time I think he’d lost a piece of himself.

 

I’ve turned calloused too in the six months here. I was headed down the same path.

I couldn’t bring him back without reason.

 

Did I do the right thing? To bring him back?

I don’t know. Only hindsight can tell.

We had the biggest homeland biosecurity issue. Two major outbreaks in city centres. And the president is dead.

The world was going to end. All those cold war doomsday scenarios have been activated all at once. China was blamed. As was Russia.

Then China itself had its outbreak and was on the cusp of being a cradle of never-ending nightmares.

 

We didn’t even have time to point fingers. The UN stepped in, it was BSAA or nought. Or maybe thermonuclear war. With zombies.

I don’t know if I would have made it in China with my team and did what we did. I think my mission would have ended with me falling off a building a few hours after stepping foot there.

 

You knew I wouldn’t bring you back if I didn’t need you right?

I loved your enough to let you go. I did not bring you back for my sake.

The world was going to hell in a handbasket.

I needed the one person to come back from hell to kick it back to safety.

Command needed you. The BSAA needed you.

I needed you. 

 

* * *

 

_Twilight and evening bell,_

_And after that the dark!_

_And may there be no sadness of farewell,_

_When I embark;_

 

That cursed underwater facility.

I have tried to think about that moment many times but I don’t know whether anything would have changed.

The BSAA has a mantra. Infected are not worth saving. No ifs, no buts, no exceptions.

I don’t now where it came from, I’m sure it was well before my time. I can only imagine it is a lesson in blood learnt from pain and too many costly mistakes.

The differences between us and them is that we are human, and they are not. Infected lose their humanity and turn into a BOW. They are a weapon, nothing more. We owe it to their memories to put them to rest.

 

That’s what I did in Edonia.

That’s what I did at Tatchi.

 

It was hopeless. We were out of time. A whole city just went up in zombies. All our operatives and teams, probably Leon too. Gone.

It was Chris and I. We could have saved a city but I fucked it up. It was damage control. Get Jake out. The son of Wesker holds the cure, or so someone thought.

 

And of course, he happens to be locked in the place where the worst threat of them all exist.

HAOS.

How far did humanity go to make something so utter terrifying and out of control?

 

That was one of the nights where I wasn’t quite sure whether heaven still exists. If I were God I would have turned away and left humanity to their putrid mess. Let them make zombies of them all.

But I was not. And I don’t know if God thought the world was worth saving. It was just Chris and myself. Two lone agents with maybe an hour of rest between us in the last two days, and a few guns and precious bullets. And Chris’ machete. My rifle, and our fists.

It wasn’t fair. No way it was fair.

Bullets and guns did nothing to the thing. A knife works, sure, but how the hell are we supposed to go against something the size of the building?

I was bleeding out. Chris was moments from death. Whatever I grabbed, I sure as hell was going to use it as a weapon.

So I damned myself. I had seen the J’avo fight. They powered on through the pain. Powered on with broken limbs.

Maybe it was God’s will all along. That I would be there, and that I would make that choice. In any case. We overcame. The virus and my arm overcame the impossible.

 

* * *

   _For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place_

_The flood may bear me far,_

_I hope to see my Pilot face to face_

_When I have crost the bar._

 

_Would I do it again? Yes. Yes I would. The most difficult choice I made in my whole life was not the choice to inject myself or not. That was easy. The hard part was to push Chris away to safety and let him go. If I hadn’t done so I wouldn’t have been able to deal with the reborn HAOS. I wouldn’t have been able to see him be well again._

_I could see now why I had my time in Edonia. I needed to learn to let go of Chris. That he was never mine to lose._

_It hurt, for each of us to have came so far in the span of one day. From strangers, back to being partners, a team, and something… more. Maybe. If it was a different time. A different place._

_But this wasn’t that kind of story._

_I didn’t bring Chris back for myself. I never did it for myself._

_Did I believe I did it for the BSAA? For the future? Yes. Yes I did._

_I did it for everyone who needed it._

I don’t know if the infected would even get to heaven. Is this heaven? Is there a God?

I don’t know what Great-grandpa saw, or heard, or how he knew he had made it.

I thought I might have been beyond redemption. The whole corrupted DNA thing. Being an infected, a mutant. A cripple.

But great-grandpa is right. Maybe there is a heaven. That a mortally wounded Nivans serviceman might one day be taken to somewhere out of this world, and be faced with the three questions.

 

I don’t know if I had lived my life the way I ought. Or if it was all in accordance to some grand cosmic plan. I live in the moment. I think I take after my Captain more than my father there, though they are both stout military men. When you’re in the BSAA, each moment that lasts is much more likely to be the last. I learn to live with the decisions I made.

 

And maybe that’s it.

I have no regrets.

No, that’s a lie. I have many regrets. I wished I was a better son, a better brother. I wished I said kinder words to those around me. I wished I did more, complained less.

I wished things with Chris might have worked out somehow, someday.

But I don’t regret my decisions and my sacrifice.

Sorry dad. Sorry mom. Tim. Adam. Lucy.

Sorry, Chris.

At least I made it, to the eternal home.

Even if I might not get to stay.

 

* * *

 

“Hey, are you OK?”

I woke up sobbing.

“It’s OK. I’m here. It’s OK.”

He wraps those strong arms around me. Nuzzles his overnight beard against my skin, guards me with his warmth and his presence.

I can feel the wetness of the pillow and I can barely talk. My nose is blocked and there’s a lump the size of a planet in my throat.

I let him hold me and hug it out. I felt all the familiar, profound sadness at once, all the gut-wrenching guilt and distain that never went away from my time at Edonia. The team that I’d lost, my team, at Lanshiang. The city that I could have saved, Tatchi.

That strange experience I had where I answered the three questions about my life.

I feel the twitch and strange warmth in my arm that is was once so foreign but now a part of me.

The fact that I am somehow here, six years later when it seemed like barely any time has passed.

And that I have the man who started it all still with me, beside me.

The years have been kinder to us since. Of course, the subject of retirement comes up all the time. Him mostly, and me too. I’m in my thirties now. Chris calls it coming into my prime. I don’t really know. I see the kids on base and they are all just so young.

I don’t know how dad ever coped in his line of work, working with the young and hopeful. Maybe he just wanted to pass on the stories he knows, and the lessons he had learnt in the hopes those around him may have an easier time one day.

 

I know now that my great-grandfather’s story was not a dream. He would have made it to heaven the way I did. He was mortally wounded. I don’t know what his experience was like, or how he answered his questions. But he came back, and had a second chance. Without that, I wouldn’t be here.

Without my second chance, neither would I be here.

 

I don’t know if I have great-grandkids to pass the story to. Maybe through the nieces and nephews mom’s been so desperate to have one day.

I will be the story teller. I would want them to know, someday, when one has crossed the bar, all that matter is who we made ourselves to be, what we have done with the time given to us, and how we have defined ourselves with the choices we had made.

 

* * *

 

I've made a recording of 'Crossing the Bar' set to music, by Australian composer Calvin Bowman. Please have a listen

 

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Alfred Lord Tennyson's enduring poem 'Crossing the Bar'  
> Set to music by many- the version I like is from Australian composer Calvin Bowman. Piano accompaniment by a good friend of mine.


End file.
